Quite the contrary. The mixture of
teasing and deference which she showed him, in the course of it, had
been the secret of her old hold upon him. She reasserted something of it
now, and he was not unwilling. During the morose and taciturn phase
through which he had been passing there had been no opportunity or
desire to talk of himself, especially to a woman. But Alicia had always
made him talk of himself, and he had forgotten how agreeable it
might be.
He threw himself down beside her, and the time passed. Lady Lucy and
Miss Falloden had retired into the back drawing-room, where the one
knitted and the other gossiped. But as the clock struck a quarter to
eleven Lady Lucy called, in some astonishment: "So you are not going
back to the House, Oliver?"
He sprang to his feet.
"Heavens!" He looked at the clock, irresolute. "Well, there's nothing
much on, mother. I don't think I need."
And he subsided again into his chair beside Alicia.
Miss Falloden looked at Lady Lucy with a meaning smile.
"I didn't know they were such friends!" she said, under her breath.
Lady Lucy made no reply. But her eyes travelled through the archway
dividing the two rooms to the distant figures framed within it--Alicia,
upright in her corner, the red gold of her hair shining against the
background of a white azalea; Oliver, deep in his arm-chair, his long
legs crossed, his hands gesticulating.
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